According to the group in which they belong and according to their destination, the joint chains are manufactured with many different qualities of steel, occasionally subject to heat treatments.

 

The pins, which are the principal component of the joints, are subjected to bending and cutting and are also produced in alloyed steel, mostly obtained from material in bars, cut or sheared. After casehardening and the following oven tempering , the nucleus of the pin remains relatively strong and properly accepts bending stress even with a certain buckling , while the surface zone that took the casehardening results hard and resistant to wear and tear.

 

Working tolerances are chosen in relationship to those of the bush and plate bore , to be able to guarantee sufficient fluency of the pin in its housing, on one hand, but also the sure interference in the bores in which it must be forced (in the plates), on the other hand.

 

In certain types of chains, especially in those assigned for conveyance of limited loads, hollow pins are used and in this case the cutting flexture resistance becomes limited, however its’s compensated by a distinct lightness of the chain.